Alright, I'm re-reading top to bottom. Was at work this whole morning and finally have the chance to sit down and go through what people have said actually write something with time instead of haste.

Foundational competence & testing.

Click to expand...

Lets define this in more simple words than what you've used.

Foundational Competence is essentially guilds that have proven their worth through time, showing they can effectively learn new content and defeat it. In PvP settings, its bragging rights.

As far as the 'can do this and this and this without doing this' part... that's all irrelevant. Results are results, even if everyone was being tortured by one mans screaming the entire time. (dats a 50 dkp minus... comes to mind..) In PvP, No one cares who you are unless you starting doing national/international events/tournaments.

'oh, but I was a 2200+ back in BC WoW Arena'.

You weren't in the top tier Arena's/tournaments, most people would not care. While your words may have more weight than others, it doesn't change the fact that overall, people won't care unless you have other mean's of proving what you say have weight.

(It's like.. why are you even listening to me? I'm just some random who has been playing games since he was 3 and just happens to be at worst: above-average gameskill wise. Others will dispute this.)

Unless i'm mistaken, that's how I see Foundational Competence (I will now be calling it FC so I don't need to type it out each time) defined and I PARTIALLY agree with it (my biggest complaint being that 'proving your worth through time'. Time is a very generic term for what most people (note: I am assuming this is what you mean) months and years. I believe that if people are willing and ready, you can reach 'FC' within days, if not.. hours.)

With that in-mind, lets continue on through this.

When testing an MMO the developers behind it, whether content or system, need to take an approach that allows their work to be validated not only by QA but also by players. We have all seen instances in MMOs where players have found issues here there any everywhere that slip through QA net’s and make their way into the launched client, essentially when it comes down to it the best QA you can have in any game is the player and that is the reason behind my post which will soley focus on end game content (be it pve or pvp).

Click to expand...

Nothing really important here except stating the fact that things do slip through the crack via QA.. Nothing to do with FC yet. Next!

With the “grapevine projected schedule” being bandied around and many people having it set in their mind that Wildstar will launch at some point this year (something I am doubtful about) my worry begins when discussing with the community team that “Guild invites have not yet been sent out” thus confirming that there are currently no focus guilds involved in the testing, especially since 40 man content is still not complete. So why bring this up? What is the problem? The problem rears it’s ugly head when 40man testing starts and in-depth and worthwhile feedback is required by Carbine but not just the above, it needs to be feedback based on competence, on guilds that have proven themselves time and time again in previous games but those guilds need to actually be honest about their skill level and worth and this is also something that Carbine needs to take a direct hand in otherwise we get the same old issues from multiple previous games that simply cater to too many people and create content that is far too easy thus ending in a mass exodus from the game after a month.

Click to expand...

Alright, now we have something. You're worried about Carbine not starting the testing yet despite the fact that plans are already in motion for testing to start soon.

Yeah, they haven't started yet because they're still working on polishing the early level content. Not only that, all the people in Core and Beta testing have been playing this game for awhile now. They've had a chance to play the game, understand how it works and have been dungeoning. I have no doubt in my mind that Carbine will help form groups to actually do raid content from the people who have been playing. Carbine has also been watching and listening to us very closely and from what I can see from the CBT3 patch notes, they take our feedback seriously. I'm also sure there is alot of s***-tier feedback, but even that can help. Having too much data is NOT a bad thing (anyone that's ever done video editing/creation knows this.. Same can be applied here) As far as creating content that's too easy... Again, I don't see that being an issue as Carbine has expressed many times they want raiding to be difficult because they claim that they are also part of that 1% of people who like to raid.

Who better to make raids than raiders?

If these guilds are not given a month prior to testing in order to gain the skill level required, the knowledge and information based around class builds/synergies and mechanics of the game then essentially Carbine will be creating a game that is built around an in-built player-skill cap that will create the aforementioned problem which will also cost developer time post-launch in order to fix. Instances will be chewed through exceptionally fast and players will get the same feeling that SWTOR provided which was the feeling of complete and utter disappointment, now some may be more inclined to say “It will be more interesting due to combat” but even TERA (which generally has the same combat style as Wildstar) couldn’t provide the end-game content that is required to hook players into it, the only way you do this is by providing a challenge that is not impossible but extremely difficult, create content that allows the best guilds out there to compete in and lets recently created guilds to aspire to be better than they are and improve.

Click to expand...

You're repeating yourself of your worry of hard content. Again. Carbine is aware and actively trying to prevent an end-game that is pushover easy for raiders and even if it is, they are developing other ways to make raiding fun (I believe leaderboards for fastest raids have been mentioned. This alone will start an awesome trend as far as raiding goes). As far as FC goes, this worry has little to do with it unless you're trying to get people to assume that without a level of competence, feedback will be useless.

Feedback is never useless. It may be bad, but never useless.

Now most of the above was aimed at PvE content so lets move on to something closer to my heart. PvP testing.

Click to expand...

I'm gonna stop here because of my earlier statements with PvP. PvP is a whole different beast from PvE and can be done without FC. Individual players of exceptional skill will be asked questions about what is and isn't broken because balance is determined by player skill. Yeah, if not done correctly, there may be a class or two that has a skill that completely dominates others, but I highly doubt Carbine would let that last long.

Lets add to the fact that Carbine is trying desperately to prevent such situations and as they are aware that class (and path) balance is a very hard line to tread, but they're trying their hardest to make sure it's as even as possible.

Your last three paragraphs litterally have nothing to do with FC but observations about beta burnout (which is another topic entirely), your opinion on what testing is better (both are wanted/needed, btw.) and a technicial issue between US/EU servers that with current technology, we cannot do anything about.

While I appreciate your attempt to bring something interesting and decent topic to bring out, this is all subject to opinions with few things being able to be decided with actual facts (mostly Metrics... which btw, Dev's have said in IRC that there is no such thing as too many/much metrics)

I apologize about my earlier posts and wish I had posted this one first as it would have prevented alot of misunderstandings and not getting off the topic at hand.

Alright, I'm re-reading top to bottom. Was at work this whole morning and finally have the chance to sit down and go through what people have said actually write something with time instead of haste.

Lets define this in more simple words than what you've used.

Foundational Competence is essentially guilds that have proven their worth through time, showing they can effectively learn new content and defeat it. In PvP settings, its bragging rights.

As far as the 'can do this and this and this without doing this' part... that's all irrelevant. Results are results, even if everyone was being tortured by one mans screaming the entire time. (dats a 50 dkp minus... comes to mind..) In PvP, No one cares who you are unless you starting doing national/international events/tournaments.

'oh, but I was a 2200+ back in BC WoW Arena'.

You weren't in the top tier Arena's/tournaments, most people would not care. While your words may have more weight than others, it doesn't change the fact that overall, people won't care unless you have other mean's of proving what you say have weight.

(It's like.. why are you even listening to me? I'm just some random who has been playing games since he was 3 and just happens to be at worst: above-average gameskill wise. Others will dispute this.)

Unless i'm mistaken, that's how I see Foundational Competence (I will now be calling it FC so I don't need to type it out each time) defined and I PARTIALLY agree with it (my biggest complaint being that 'proving your worth through time'. Time is a very generic term for what most people (note: I am assuming this is what you mean) months and years. I believe that if people are willing and ready, you can reach 'FC' within days, if not.. hours.)

Click to expand...

You have taken my definition and turned it on its head by attempting to explore too deeply into the "Competence" part. Every guild in the world has a certain amount of "Competence" to them otherwise they wouldn't be a guild, they wouldn't have members and they simply would fail to do anything (inclusive of calling themselves a guild). By bringing WoW arena into it you dilute this further thus making the term irrelevant - Which is why I kept my definition as distinct and precise as possible without bringing singular games or situations into it, by doing what you did you simply dilute the entire premise of foundational competence and confuse the entire issue.

With that in-mind, lets continue on through this.

Nothing really important here except stating the fact that things do slip through the crack via QA.. Nothing to do with FC yet. Next!

Alright, now we have something. You're worried about Carbine not starting the testing yet despite the fact that plans are already in motion for testing to start soon.

Yeah, they haven't started yet because they're still working on polishing the early level content. Not only that, all the people in Core and Beta testing have been playing this game for awhile now. They've had a chance to play the game, understand how it works and have been dungeoning. I have no doubt in my mind that Carbine will help form groups to actually do raid content from the people who have been playing. Carbine has also been watching and listening to us very closely and from what I can see from the CBT3 patch notes, they take our feedback seriously. I'm also sure there is alot of s***-tier feedback, but even that can help. Having too much data is NOT a bad thing (anyone that's ever done video editing/creation knows this.. Same can be applied here) As far as creating content that's too easy... Again, I don't see that being an issue as Carbine has expressed many times they want raiding to be difficult because they claim that they are also part of that 1% of people who like to raid.

Who better to make raids than raiders?

Click to expand...

I am not sure you understand the point behind this thread after reading this reply and you are taking mere statements as absolute gospel when history should have taught you not to.

MMO companies have to produce PR and cater to what the general populous wants, they arent going to say things like "We might make content too easy - even though we want it to be hard", that would be insanity for a company to do but what they will say is "We want content to be hard" which sounds far better and more presentable to vast sums of people since that will instil a feeling of pride in individuals who complete this content since it was apparently "Hard". Onto the next part of your reply that seems confused, this post is entierly based around time served guilds that are competent and proven testing end game 40 man content, your reply is based around individuals who have been singularly invited to a beta. These individuals if thrown together will not provide accurate feedback to cater towards organised guilds or hard core raiders - its simply something that isnt going to work when putting a PUG group together for testing. There will be arguments, there will be issues when attempting to deal with a difficult situation, there will be cries of "you said a bad word" and so on and so forth when time tested groups that run raids or dungeons like this have already worked out how to separate their issues from their advancement - Note: Most of them, not all of them, there are still guilds/groups out there that still have arguments regarding things like this!

Essentially you are making your own questions up then answering them, not commenting on my post.

You're repeating yourself of your worry of hard content. Again. Carbine is aware and actively trying to prevent an end-game that is pushover easy for raiders and even if it is, they are developing other ways to make raiding fun (I believe leaderboards for fastest raids have been mentioned. This alone will start an awesome trend as far as raiding goes). As far as FC goes, this worry has little to do with it unless you're trying to get people to assume that without a level of competence, feedback will be useless.

Feedback is never useless. It may be bad, but never useless.

Click to expand...

This worries me, I WANT hard content, I want content that makes people think and that a vast majority can only aspire to complete when the top end guilds of the game struggle to complete instances. This is a deep rooted desire from me and one of the very selfish reasons that I wrote this thread, its not because I want players to have "easymode" content that they can chew through, I want there to be huge rock climbs for players to overcome because the sense of achievement after it is what people like me generally play for!

I'm gonna stop here because of my earlier statements with PvP. PvP is a whole different beast from PvE and can be done without FC. Individual players of exceptional skill will be asked questions about what is and isn't broken because balance is determined by player skill. Yeah, if not done correctly, there may be a class or two that has a skill that completely dominates others, but I highly doubt Carbine would let that last long.

Lets add to the fact that Carbine is trying desperately to prevent such situations and as they are aware that class (and path) balance is a very hard line to tread, but they're trying their hardest to make sure it's as even as possible.

Click to expand...

Again you are answering your own questions without reading the thread, we are talking about guilds here, not individuals of exceptional skill that will apparently be asked questions about what is and isnt broken (thus resulting in far more skewed data) rather than asking a collection of like minded individuals from various guilds which would be far more efficient. (Note: This is regarding large scale pvp not battlegrounds).

Once again you take words at face value rather than looking at past examples of games where things simply are not what they are said to be. I wish I could be as much of a believer as you are but sadly years in the MMO market has taught me to be very cautious unless I see it for myself.

Your last three paragraphs litterally have nothing to do with FC but observations about beta burnout (which is another topic entirely), your opinion on what testing is better (both are wanted/needed, btw.) and a technicial issue between US/EU servers that with current technology, we cannot do anything about.

While I appreciate your attempt to bring something interesting and decent topic to bring out, this is all subject to opinions with few things being able to be decided with actual facts (mostly Metrics... which btw, Dev's have said in IRC that there is no such thing as too many/much metrics)

I apologize about my earlier posts and wish I had posted this one first as it would have prevented alot of misunderstandings and not getting off the topic at hand.

Click to expand...

I too appreciate your engagement on this topic but I would appreciate a far more focused discussion on the content of my post rather than what you think or believe I am writing. The focus of my post is quite simple and direct: Without focus guilds within which carbine can use as test monkeys for all their content - Both NA and EU (since both play games extremely different) then there is very little chance of balancing end game (elder) content efficiently. Trying to balance PvP off metrics would be like trying to pin the tail on a donkey using tweezers while the donkey runs around, you might as well throw a dart at a dartboard to determine what you want to do, small scale PvP and large scale PvP being balanced together takes huge amounts of effort and resources and can make or break a game for vast sums of players focused on this type of play which is why, since I am a gamer who is focused on fighting other gamers, I would like balance to be done not just "well" but "exceptionally well" to the point of not being able to squeeze any more possibilities out of it - Without that Carbine will have let down a vast majority of players simply due to them claiming this game will be "different" and they will listen to the players.

Any player who wants a competitive game should in essence agree with the above, if not then I would generally conclude that they either don't really want competition as much as they may think or may have become too emotionally invested in the game and the whole "white knight" movement that games generally tend to create - It is simply a shame that very few guilds are willing to discuss this openly - whether it be through fear of no beta or general disinterest... it is very much a shame.

Warplots need FC testers from both US and EU. As Aneu said the fighting styles are so very different between the continents. And as I said Warplots are the thing to make or break the game for many people. Sure the devs might just pick 40 of the top PvPrs from the CBT3 and test Warplots with those, but how likely is it that those 40 people from various backgrounds discuss their possibilities, synergies and group tactics. And how likely is it that those 40 people have been thinking about the Warplot potential of their abilities since the first CBT they were part of? That's where inviting competent guilds as early as possible comes in. Members of those guilds will start theorycrafting and planning the moment they get the hang of the game, creating a lot of different strategies and possible exploits to test. Sure the 40 man group of randoms might do that too but I'm sure the guild that is dedicated to play that content together even after release is going to do it better.

Interesting stuff, this foundational competence business. Folks sure are interested in the hardness of the game being QA'd to hell and back.

I think Carbine's gonna have to live with testing via ad hoc guilds and just tune a bit higher than whatever metrics they get from that, to correct for higher FC values in live.

Testing is good and righteous, but sometimes you gotta go qualitative. And for pvp, there's gonna be constant rebalancing in live no matter what happens. Haven't seen an MMO yet whose patch notes weren't full of pvp class tweaks every friggin time. If they're smart (which they are) and keep hand on pulse they'll hit equilibrium quickly.

An interesting read from a current developer (not from Carbine) on the situation with development at the moment. While not fully backing my initial post it does simply add to my position that testing - and full testing (with guilds) should have started sooner.

While I will not argue the rather apparent need of both competent and not so competent guilds being able to test group content being designed for them, I'd stay away from statements discrediting random groups of people getting together to play, without having previous, common history.

In general, I'm inclined to think the chunk of all mmo closed beta invites should be send out to groups early on, not just individuals. First, testing on your own can get lonely, depending on what geographical region you happen to be from. Second, sending invites randomly often results in exactly that - random people not particularly interested in testing the game, hoping on occasionally to see if they like it, then vanishing for a while and only coming back to test if their personal preferences have been met next patch around.

While direct feedback from such people is often non existent, I'm confident they bring proper value to the beta phase anyhow, as these are the ones that reflect a big chunk of the potential playerbase. People not particularly thrilled about any certain aspect of the game, rather passing by hoping to find something that will interest them, sometimes staying, sometimes leaving.

That said, games evolving around group content, need to test said content from various angles. Such as the random individuals, the not so random passionates, established succesful guilds from other games, as well as random groups of people. All of the above can contribute equally to the game. Coming from different background, with different motivations, and varying skillset, will allows devs to gather feedback spanning a much wider audience then limiting yourself to few chosen ones, or few 'said to be' competent, be it groups/guilds or individuals.

Wildstar is an mmo, one with impressive list of features at launch; one addressing long lost large scale group content, as well as the new, trendy -'solo your way through an mmo' experience, and everything in between.

I'd think they need variaty among their testers. It seems up to date, they have been covering it quite well - you had the friends and family bit, the random bit, the community enthusiasts bit - organized groups bit is on the horizon.

Can't really see a problem with Carbine's approach to the issue at all.

As for guilds being given enough time to accustom themselves with the game before being handed over cap level characters and thrown into the most challanging content - well, if we're talking about the most competent/recognized groups - it should not be a problem: they are gamers at heart, people that will pick up both class mechanics as well as encounter design quickly. They are well above the average skill set, as such, I dare to say, require much less time to get a hang of things.

As for the rest of guilds/groups - when deciding on participating in such tests should the opportunity arise, they simply should be fully aware of what it amounts to, else there is little to no point of them being there in the first place. Don't think anyone with any sense, would expect to go in, and plow through content that is being delivered, preferably bug free too

Yes, it might involve learning to play your character while clearing a raid, and it might lead to immense frustration, and it might so happen that half of the group will decide they are not up for it.

It's not for everyone but no guild, be it World's First in game X or Johnny's Casual Raiding Circle can provide any guarantees on how their members will find themselves in the new environment. It might so happen, that the competent Guild's members will simply not enjoy the game at all, and Johnny may get lucky and amass the most dedicated testers out there, or maybe he's just a charismatic leader

I'd say Carbine is doing well, invites are going out steadily in various directions, and when the time comes, I'm sure the raid testing will be handled in such a way that gathers broad feedback across the board, while at the same time being convinient for the devs, and least possibly annoying for the testers.

If you're in it, great - if you're not, the game will be fresh and exciting on launchl a feeling you never get after months of beta testing Either way, it's a win, win situation given a quality product is delivered.

And while we may all think we'd be better then others for whatever purpose, we're not. Neither do we have the right to judge who is. There are plenty of competent testesr out there, in any game. It's up to the devs to filter out constructive critisizm from a sea of often sensless whining. It's the makers of the game that should be most interested in it's success. And there is no doubt in my mind, that in case of WS, the attitude of the devs is more then adequeate.